Sit down, worthy friends. My husband is often like this, and he
has been since he was a child. Please stay seated. This is just a
brief fit. In a moment he’ll be well again. If you pay too
much attention to him you’ll make him angry, and that will
make his convulsions go on longer. Eat your dinner and pay no
attention to him. (speaking so that
only MACBETH can hear) Are
you a man?

MACBETH

Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that

Which might appall the devil.

MACBETH

Yes, and a brave one, who dares to look at something that would
frighten the devil.

LADY MACBETH

O
proper stuff!

This is the very painting of your fear.

65This is the air-drawn dagger which you said

Led you to Duncan. Oh, these flaws and starts,

Impostors to true fear, would well become

A woman’s story at a winter’s fire,

Authorized by her grandam. Shame itself!

70Why do you make such faces? When all’s done,

You look but on a stool.

LADY MACBETH

Oh, that’s nonsense! This is just another one of the
hallucinations you always get when you’re afraid. This is
like that floating dagger you said was leading you toward Duncan.
These outbursts of yours don’t even look like real fear.
They’re more like how you would act if you were a woman
telling a scary story by the fireside in front of her grandmother.
Shame on you! Why are you making these faces? When the vision
passes, you’ll see that you’re just looking at a
stool.

MACBETH

Prithee, see there! Behold! Look! Lo! How say you?

Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too.

If charnel houses and our graves must send

75Those that we bury back, our monuments

Shall be the maws of kites.

MACBETH

Please, just look over there. Look! Look! See! (to the GHOST) What do you have to say? What do I care? If you can nod,
then speak too. If the dead are going to return from their graves,
then there’s nothing to stop the birds from eating the
bodies. So there’s no point in our burying people.